The Digital, Capitalist Gaze
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22120959 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jens Schröter (0000-0002-4989-686X, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 13 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 245-264 |
| Publication date | 2022-08-15 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Digital Culture & Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2364-2114 • E-ISSN: 2364-2122 |
| Publisher | Transcript Verlag (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.14361/dcs-2021-070212 |
| OpenAlex | W4289551951 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
Today there are surely more images in circulation and more visibility than ever before. This is due mostly to the diffusion of digital technologies in the context of global capitalism. The following paper undertakes to address this situation by relating the image/visibility to digital technologies and capitalism. The core idea is to analyse this situation on the basis of a theory of the gaze as a theory of the subject's constitutive visibility. A classical notion of the gaze, as elaborated by Lacan, will be discussed. The latter conceives the subject as always already visible. Being seen or surveilled is not something that happens subsequently to an already constituted subject; instead, it forms the subject from the very beginning. This can explain the desire and fascination invested in images today. This approach to the gaze is historically differentiated and related to image technologies. Contrary to Lacan's somewhat ahistorical conception of the gaze, it becomes clear that the gaze is historically dependent on the available media technologies, which means that the primordial visibility of the subject is realised in different ways. Finally, this is related to a discussion of capitalism, the socioeconomic context to which all modern image technologies belong. It is thus argued that the gaze in modern societies is a digital and capitalist gaze
Aesthetics · Capitalism · Epistemology · Gaze · Geography · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Visibility · Cinema and Media Studies · Computer Science · Cybernetics and Technology in Society · Digital Media and Philosophy · History · Law · Philosophy · Artificial Intelligence
| Citations per year | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |